Factory Girl
Ellen Johnston and Working-Class Poetry in Victorian Scotland
Published on 1. June 1998
Book
Paperback/Softback
117 pages
978-3-631-33471-3 (ISBN)
Description
It is at last being recognized that, contrary to common understanding, there were working-class women poets in the nineteenth century. Yet this growing awareness is rarely accompanied by a sustained engagement with their poetry. Painstaking research into the life and work of an author remains constricted to the Brownings and Rossettis of both sexes. The present study breaks with this academic habit. It is the first critical biography of the Glaswegian writer who signed her poems as 'The Factory Girl'. It is an essay in recovery and exploration, situating Ellen Johnston at the intersection of gender, class and nation. It documents her range of subjects, styles and voices. The book is concluded by a selection of Ellen Johnston's verse.
Reviews / Votes
«Professor Klaus must be commended for his pioneering work in righting a monumental wrong and he quite properly takes to task those feminist writers of our own time who have either ignored Ellen or misinterpreted her life and work to suit their own agenda.» (James Mackay, Studies in Scottish Literature)«'Factory Girl' is the product of a strong interest, a commitment to research ...the book is a challenge by the editor, to adapt critical approach to material and context, to show flexibility in drawing information and critical insight from whatever is available...'Factory Girl' makes the reader re-evaluate both the poetry it presents and the reader's assumptions on reading both the book and the editor's presentation of the poetry: no mean achievement.» (Ian Campbell, Scottish Literary Journal)
More details
Person
The Author: H. Gustav Klaus is Professor of the Literature of the British Isles at the University of Rostock, Germany. He takes a special interest in the 'little' tradition of working-class writing. His books in that area include The Literature of Labour (1985) and The Rise of Socialist Fiction 1880-1914 (1987). More recently he has published a study of the Irish poet Thomas O'Brien, Strong Words Brave Deeds (1994), and an investigation of crime fiction, The Art of Murder (1998).
Content
Contents: Feminist criticism and working-class writing - Songs of war and peace - The angry voice - Poems of passion and desire - The Penny Post: audience, community, recognition - Disappearance.